My name is Daniel Mondello. Or Dan, as the whispers in the stale air of my past preferred. I’ve worn both, much like I’ve worn the heavy cloak of accusation, the acrid tang of trafficked drugs, the chilling echo of underage laughter twisted into something unrecognizable. Jail was a landscape I knew too well, its concrete veins a map of my own ruin. Now, I’m trying to market cannabis, a venture as fragile and fleeting as the morning mist over a city that’s long forgotten my name, or remembers it only as a scar. But even in this fumbling, this awkward dance with legitimacy, there’s a flicker. A refusal to be defined solely by the shadows.